Posted on 06/14/2010 8:00:04 AM PDT by Publius
In this short paper, Hamilton looks at how the familiarity of the people with the federal government in their daily lives will bind the people to that government.
1 To the People of the State of New York:
2 It has been urged in different shapes that a constitution of the kind proposed by the Convention cannot operate without the aid of a military force to execute its laws.
3 This, however, like most other things that have been alleged on that side, rests on mere general assertion, unsupported by any precise or intelligible designation of the reasons upon which it is founded.
4 As far as I have been able to divine the latent meaning of the objectors, it seems to originate in a presupposition that the people will be disinclined to the exercise of federal authority in any matter of an internal nature.
5 Waiving any exception that might be taken to the inaccuracy or inexplicitness of the distinction between internal and external, let us inquire what ground there is to presuppose that disinclination in the people.
6 Unless we presume at the same time that the powers of the general government will be worse administered than those of the state government, there seems to be no room for the presumption of ill will, disaffection, or opposition in the people.
7 I believe it may be laid down as a general rule that their confidence in, and obedience to, a government will commonly be proportioned to the goodness or badness of its administration.
8 It must be admitted that there are exceptions to this rule; but these exceptions depend so entirely on accidental causes that they cannot be considered as having any relation to the intrinsic merits or demerits of a constitution.
9 These can only be judged of by general principles and maxims.
10 Various reasons have been suggested in the course of these papers to induce a probability that the general government will be better administered than the particular governments, the principal of which reasons are:
11 Several additional reasons of considerable force to fortify that probability will occur when we come to survey with a more critical eye the interior structure of the edifice which we are invited to erect.
12 It will be sufficient here to remark that until satisfactory reasons can be assigned to justify an opinion that the federal government is likely to be administered in such a manner as to render it odious or contemptible to the people, there can be no reasonable foundation for the supposition that the laws of the Union will meet with any greater obstruction from them or will stand in need of any other methods to enforce their execution than the laws of the particular members.
13 The hope of impunity is a strong incitement to sedition, the dread of punishment a proportionably strong discouragement to it.
14 Will not the government of the Union, which, if possessed of a due degree of power, can call to its aid the collective resources of the whole Confederacy, be more likely to repress the former sentiment and to inspire the latter than that of a single state, which can only command the resources within itself?
15 A turbulent faction in a state may easily suppose itself able to contend with the friends to the government in that state, but it can hardly be so infatuated as to imagine itself a match for the combined efforts of the Union.
16 If this reflection be just, there is less danger of resistance from irregular combinations of individuals to the authority of the Confederacy than to that of a single member.
17 I will in this place hazard an observation which will not be the less just because to some it may appear new, which is that:
18 Man is very much a creature of habit.
19 A thing that rarely strikes his senses will generally have but little influence upon his mind.
20 A government continually at a distance and out of sight can hardly be expected to interest the sensations of the people.
21 The inference is that the authority of the Union and the affections of the citizens towards it will be strengthened, rather than weakened, by its extension to what are called matters of internal concern, and will have less occasion to recur to force in proportion to the familiarity and comprehensiveness of its agency.
22 The more it circulates through those channels and currents in which the passions of mankind naturally flow, the less will it require the aid of the violent and perilous expedients of compulsion.
23 One thing at all events must be evident, that a government like the one proposed would bid much fairer to avoid the necessity of using force than that species of league contend for by most of its opponents, the authority of which should only operate upon the states in their political or collective capacities.
24 It has been shown that in such a confederacy there can be no sanction for the laws but force, that frequent delinquencies in the members are the natural offspring of the very frame of the government, and that as often as these happen, they can only be redressed, if at all, by war and violence.
25 The plan reported by the Convention, by extending the authority of the federal head to the individual citizens of the several states, will enable the government to employ the ordinary magistracy of each in the execution of its laws.
26 It is easy to perceive that this will tend to destroy in the common apprehension all distinction between the sources from which they might proceed and will give the federal government the same advantage for securing a due obedience to its authority which is enjoyed by the government of each state, in addition to the influence on public opinion which will result from the important consideration of its having power to call to its assistance and support the resources of the whole Union.
27 It merits particular attention in this place that the laws of the Confederacy, as to the enumerated and legitimate objects of its jurisdiction, will become the supreme law of the land, to the observance of which all officers – legislative, executive and judicial, in each state – will be bound by the sanctity of an oath.
28 Thus the legislatures, courts and magistrates of the respective members will be incorporated into the operations of the national government as far as its just and constitutional authority extends, and will be rendered auxiliary to the enforcement of its laws.*
29 Any man who will pursue by his own reflections the consequences of this situation will perceive that there is good ground to calculate upon a regular and peaceable execution of the laws of the Union if its powers are administered with a common share of prudence.
30 If we will arbitrarily suppose the contrary, we may deduce any inferences we please from the supposition, for it is certainly possible by an injudicious exercise of the authorities of the best government that ever was or ever can be instituted, to provoke and precipitate the people into the wildest excesses.
31 But though the adversaries of the proposed Constitution should presume that the national rulers would be insensible to the motives of public good or to the obligations of duty, I would still ask them how the interests of ambition, or the views of encroachment, can be promoted by such a conduct?
[*] The sophistry which has been employed to show that this will tend to the destruction of the state governments will, in its proper place, be fully detected.
Hamilton’s Critique
It is now Christmas Day, and the positions of the sides are becoming clearer. This is an odd piece at first reading, jumbled and indirect, but there is an underlying structure to be gleaned from a second reading. Its key is found in Hamilton’s opening sentence.
2 It has been urged in different shapes that a constitution of the kind proposed by the Convention cannot operate without the aid of a military force to execute its laws.
His aim, therefore, is to articulate his belief that the proposed Constitution is not deficient in that area, at least by comparison to existing state governments and especially to that of the existing Confederation. This is, actually, rather disingenuous on Hamilton’s part inasmuch as the writer citing that principle the most was speaking strictly in the latter case, and that writer was Hamilton himself. The reader has to wait until 24 for a restatement of this.
24 It has been shown that in such a confederacy there can be no sanction for the laws but force, that frequent delinquencies in the members are the natural offspring of the very frame of the government, and that as often as these happen, they can only be redressed, if at all, by war and violence.
This is not a historical case in a direct sense inasmuch as the Confederation itself did not, in the event of Shays' Rebellion, resort to violence. But one of the origins of that rebellion was the inability of the Confederation to address those delinquencies in funding on the part of the states that resulted in the veterans marching. Hamilton is at least correct about that, although one is struck by his seeming preference for putting the sedition down than in addressing its cause.
He is strongest when he is citing historical precedent, and part of the difficulty of this piece is to be found at 9, where he states somewhat obliquely that the intention of the current piece is a defense of the proposed Constitution on the basis of “general principles and maxims.” Hamilton the theorist is a much less direct writer than Hamilton the historian.
On what basis is this proposed government less likely to resort to violence by nature of its very structure? Hamilton's basic case is that it is due to a direct engagement with the individual citizen (17), an old theme of his, and that once the citizen becomes accustomed to dealing with the federal government on what the anti-Federalists were referring to as “internal matters”, the fact that it would do so in a manner more adroit than that of the state governments would endear the citizen toward the federal government, making coercion less necessary. It is a wildly speculative case, to be sure, but the nature of arguing from principle and maxim is that the proponent must speculate, must make predictions that enable a future observer to examine both case and principle on the basis of actual performance.
This business of being better administered is not only an echo of Alexander Pope's famous couplet on the matter – “whatever is best administered is best” – but of the anti-Federalist writing under the pen name of John DeWitt who had previously cited it in two pieces in October. It is apparently one point on which both sides agreed, although the modern reader, with the examples of hideously efficient police states in his or her experience, might find cause to differ. To Hamilton's readers, however, the examples of giant and horribly administered governments were far more extant: one of these, the French of nearly a millennium's duration, had at the time of the writing just gone bankrupt and would soon descend into chaos.
Hamilton's first argument is that the federal government, by virtue of its wider scope of membership and his belief that it will be less susceptible to faction, will be better administered (10) than the state governments. There is a whiff throughout Hamilton's writing of the cosmopolitan New Yorker looking with disdain at the governments of certain other states – all of them, really – as being provincial and composed of unsophisticated bumpkins, an attitude that might be annoyingly familiar to the modern reader. He may, of course, have been correct as well as condescending.
His second is that it will be better able to deal with the matter of sedition within the states (13) and, in fact, less susceptible to sedition itself than those states (15).
Lastly there is an argument that is in reality an admission that certain fears of the anti-Federalists were true.
27 It merits particular attention in this place that the laws of the Confederacy, as to the enumerated and legitimate objects of its jurisdiction, will become the supreme law of the land, to the observance of which all officers – legislative, executive and judicial, in each state – will be bound...
28 Thus the legislatures, courts and magistrates of the respective members will be incorporated into the operations of the national government as far as its just and constitutional authority extends, and will be rendered auxiliary to the enforcement of its laws.
Hamilton has emphasized the phrase “as far as its just and constitutional authority extends,” a caution, in his belief, that restraint is supplied by the proposed Constitution in the form of enumerated powers, and that no alternate plan satisfies this requirement as well. But he has already spoken of a federal government whose inclination toward violence would be tempered by the expansion of its influence toward the ordinary citizen in the roles described as “internal matters.” It is not entirely clear yet where he expects the dividing line to fall. His opponents would insist that no such dividing line existed within the plan, a line of argument that would lead directly to the necessity for a bill of rights.
Discussion Topics
Earlier threads:
FReeper Book Club: The Debate over the Constitution
5 Oct 1787, Centinel #1
6 Oct 1787, James Wilson’s Speech at the State House
8 Oct 1787, Federal Farmer #1
9 Oct 1787, Federal Farmer #2
18 Oct 1787, Brutus #1
22 Oct 1787, John DeWitt #1
27 Oct 1787, John DeWitt #2
27 Oct 1787, Federalist #1
31 Oct 1787, Federalist #2
3 Nov 1787, Federalist #3
5 Nov 1787, John DeWitt #3
7 Nov 1787, Federalist #4
10 Nov 1787, Federalist #5
14 Nov 1787, Federalist #6
15 Nov 1787, Federalist #7
20 Nov 1787, Federalist #8
21 Nov 1787, Federalist #9
23 Nov 1787, Federalist #10
24 Nov 1787, Federalist #11
27 Nov 1787, Federalist #12
27 Nov 1787, Cato #5
28 Nov 1787, Federalist #13
29 Nov 1787, Brutus #4
30 Nov 1787, Federalist #14
1 Dec 1787, Federalist #15
4 Dec 1787, Federalist #16
5 Dec 1787, Federalist #17
7 Dec 1787, Federalist #18
8 Dec 1787, Federalist #19
11 Dec 1787, Federalist #20
12 Dec 1787, Federalist #21
14 Dec 1787, Federalist #22
18 Dec 1787, Federalist #23
18 Dec 1787, Address of the Pennsylvania Minority
19 Dec 1787, Federalist #24
21 Dec 1787, Federalist #25
22 Dec 1787, Federalist #26
In my view Hamilton started out advocating for a mercantile empire and most of what he wrote in the federalist was aimed at ultimately achieving that goal. He never gave up on the idea until a duel with Aaron Burr on July 11, 1804 put an end to his earthly existence.
Napoleon thought so too. On the Louisiana Purchase he stated “This accession of territory affirms forever the power of the United States, and I have given England a maritime rival who sooner or later will humble her pride.” There wasn’t any real question that the United States would expand, the only debate was in what form. From his Caribbean antecedents Hamilton knew all about mercantile empires.
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